“You can’t do anything for him, and I need you to help describe what happened to the police.”
She flagged down the police officers when they arrived, and began explaining with a torrent of hand gestures and rapid Arabic, which made me wonder just why she thought my presence was necessary. Two of them peeled away immediately, presumably to search for Mohammad. The remaining officer listened with growing skepticism to Anni, taking notes in a small notebook. He looked over at me when she pointed.
“Jocelyn, come here. I want to show him your neck.” Anni beckoned to me.
“What?” I asked, stepping forward.
“Your neck. You have bruises already. Can’t you feel them?”
I pulled down the collar of my oxford shirt and heard Kyla’s gasp. I could still feel Mohammad’s huge hands where they had gripped me, but I didn’t see until much later the angry red and purple marks that they had left on my neck. The officer’s attitude changed in a flash, and he pulled out a radio and barked instructions.
The sound and light show ended and tourists streamed out of the theater area on their way back to the buses. Anni clicked her tongue in frustration.
“I must meet my group at the bus and see that they make it back to the ship,” she said. “And these two must be exhausted. Do you need them tonight?”
The officer hesitated, and then shrugged. “We can come to the ship if we need anything further.” He referred to his notes. “The Nile Lotus you said, yes?”
I grabbed Anni’s arm as a thought hit me. “They’ll come to the bus!” I said.
“What?”
“Fiona and Flora. They might come to the bus with everyone else. They couldn’t have seen me before. I mean, they couldn’t have known it was me that Mohammad was chasing. I could have been anyone—some kid who overheard what they were saying or a security guard. And if they didn’t know it was me, they might try to brazen it out and rejoin the tour.”
“That would be very foolish,” said Anni.
“But how else are they going to get out of the country?”
As it turned out, I was finally right about something. Fiona and Flora turned up at the bus, late as always, looking more confused and bent than ever. Kyla and I watched from the windows as Anni delayed them at the steps just long enough for the police to swoop out of the shadows and arrest them. I thought our bus would flip over on its side as everyone leaped to the windows.
“What are they doing to those old ladies? They can’t do that! We’re Americans!” said Jerry, outraged. He jumped to his feet. “I’m a lawyer! Let me through. Lawyer coming through!” shouted Jerry. He literally pushed Keith out of his way and went charging off the bus.
It was too much. Kyla and I clutched each other’s arms and fell back in our seats laughing. I could see Jerry talking to the police. He tried throwing himself protectively in front of Flora and Fiona, gesturing wildly. Even through the bus windows, I could hear muffled shouts of “American citizen” and “rights.” I thought one of the policemen was going to punch him, and I could see another reaching for the handcuffs. Fortunately for Jerry, Anni grabbed his arm and said something in his ear. He deflated like a pricked balloon, or maybe just a prick. He crept back onto the bus with his tail between his legs and snapped at his daughter as he sat down. Still, you had to give it to him. Misguided and arrogant, maybe, but still, surprisingly chivalrous.
As I watched Jerry return to his seat, enjoying the red glow on his face, I noticed the Carpenters sitting in the back. Unlike the rest of us, they were not watching the spectacle from the windows. They weren’t even gloating over Jerry’s embarrassment. Instead, they had switched seats so that Jane was pressed into the back corner, guarded by both Lydia and Ben. She had even half pulled the curtain and was sunk down low, as if she were hiding. I caught a glimpse of her face and was shocked at the raw fear in her eyes. If I’d had any doubts before, I had none now. Jane was terrified of the Egyptian police.
As the police led Fiona and Flora away, Anni hopped back on the bus, gesturing to Achmed, the driver, to start the engine. Achmed didn’t need to be told twice.
Anni took up her microphone as the bus lurched forward. “Hello, is everyone here? I’m afraid this one time I have neglected to count heads.”
We all looked around, scanning for faces. Yvonne actually half rose in her seats and did a quick count. “Short four,” she called.
“Good,” smiled Anni. “Just what I expected.”
“Amazing,” whispered Kyla. “What do you think it would take to rattle that woman?”
“Just what the hell is going on?” shouted Jerry. He had bounced back into full bluster mode in record time.
“Don’t talk to Miss Anni that way, young man,” reproved Charlie de Vance in his quavery voice. Yvonne gave Charlie an admiring glance and stroked his arm.
Jerry opened his mouth to say something scathing and then finally noticed a dozen pairs of hostile eyes on him. He pressed his lips together in a thin line and sat back in his seat.
“I know you are all curious. I wish I could tell you what has happened, but unfortunately I know hardly more than you. All I can say is that the police want to speak with Fiona and Flora regarding the murder of Millie Owens.” She held up her hand to stop the wondering murmur that arose. “Don’t worry, your consulate has been called. They will be given every consideration, and WorldPal will ensure that they are provided with all the resources that they need.”
We digested this as the bus rattled back through the darkness toward the Nile.
Dawn Kim looked worried. “Those poor old ladies. I knew they were going to get into trouble, traveling alone like that. I don’t see what the police can possibly want with them. They must be so afraid.”
“I’m sure they’ll be fine,” said her husband. “And Mohammad is with them, right, Anni?”
Without skipping a beat, Anni nodded. “Yes, Mohammad is on his way to join them right now.”
Everyone on the bus visibly relaxed. Thinking that Mohammad was on his way to the police station made everyone happy, especially Kyla and me. I rubbed my throat, which still felt pretty raw, and then pulled my collar higher. I certainly didn’t want to have to answer any questions.
Anni went on. “The most important thing is that tomorrow, we need to be packed and ready to fly back to Cairo at eight a.m. I have arranged wake-up calls as usual.”
And she went on to discuss all the logistics of our return. Tomorrow we would start the long homeward journey. In less than twenty-four hours, Kyla and I would be on a plane headed for Frankfurt and then home.
Kyla and I loitered beside the bus until everyone had filed past on their way to the Nile Lotus, then turned to Anni.
“What about Alan?” I asked.
“I am going to the hospital as soon as everyone is safely on board. You may come with me.”
I threw a glance at Kyla.
“Go on,” she said. “I’ll start packing for you. I’ll do a better job than you would anyway.”
I thought briefly about arguing with that and then decided she was probably right. “Thanks.”
The hospital was a small, relatively new building on the outskirts of the city. Even at this hour, it was very busy. At least a dozen men sat and stood in the waiting room in various poses ranging from boredom to anxiety. A woman holding a crying child in her lap sat in a corner. All eyes turned on us as we walked in. Anni ignored them and stopped at the front desk to inquire. Hospitals are the same everywhere. Same smell, same overworked staff, same combination of impatience and worry. The woman at the check-in desk seemed to be trying to tell Anni that she couldn’t or wouldn’t give out any information about Alan. Anni kept the half-smile on her face and spoke gently but rapidly. After a few moments the woman shrugged, pulled out a sheaf of papers, and located the record.
We found Alan in the emergency room, on a bed in a room with several others, hidden behind a white curtain. He looked very pale, his eyelashes dark against his white skin. An IV dri
pped steadily into his veins, and a white bandage covered his forehead. Somehow, he looked young and vulnerable. I reached out to stroke the hand that lay on the sheets.
A doctor wearing a white coat joined us. To my surprise, he was a sandy-haired young man with prominent front teeth and freckles. He didn’t look old enough to have graduated high school, much less medical school, but he was cheerfully competent. His accent marked him as American immediately.
“He was lucky, that’s for sure. Another couple of cc of morphine, and he’d be dead. As it is, we’ve got him on fluids to flush it from his system. He’ll sleep it off and probably start coming around in the morning.”
“He’s going to be all right then?”
“Oh yeah. He’ll be completely fine in a day or two. And on the bright side, with all that morphine, he didn’t even feel the stitches.”
“Stitches?” I asked hesitantly.
“Yeah, right there above his eyebrow. Eight of ’em. I did a great job,” he said enthusiastically. “It looks bad now, with the sutures and the swelling, but take my word—he’ll only have a tiny white line to show for it. Looks like he was hit with a rock or something else pretty jagged. Must have hurt like hell.”
“I’m pretty sure he was already under the morphine when he got hit. Would he have felt much?”
The doctor shook his head. “Nope, he wouldn’t have felt a thing in the condition he’s in. He’ll have a hell of a headache in the morning, though.”
I looked down at Alan’s unconscious form.
“Those bastards,” I said, with only a small pang of guilt. After all, I wouldn’t have thrown the rock if it hadn’t been for Mohammad and Flora and Fiona. It wasn’t really my fault.
“You got that right,” he agreed. “Looks like they were trying to kill him. Why in the hell would they have banged him with a rock if he was already doped up?”
I decided to change the subject. “You sound like you’re a long way from home.”
He grinned. “Baltimore and Luxor are sister cities. We’ve got a program where our medical folks can come and help out and do some training for a few weeks every year. We get to see the sights, get some of the local flavor in a way you can’t as an ordinary tourist. It’s pretty cool.”
Anni returned. “The best thing will be to return to the ship. WorldPal is sending another agent who will arrive the first thing in the morning and who will look after Alan. I will escort the rest of the group to Cairo as originally scheduled.”
I swallowed hard. I knew she was right, that the best thing to do was to continue on with the tour. There was nothing I could do, here in a strange country, knowing nothing of the language, with no influence and very little money. And after all, what was Alan to me? A man I’d known for only a few days, shared a few jokes and a dance with. A man who probably wouldn’t even remember my name in a month. The thought was unbearably painful.
Anni caught my stricken look and patted my arm. “Don’t worry. He’ll be fine. You saved his life, you know. I think that you will see him again.”
Saturday and Beyond
Return to Cairo for your final night. Take an optional afternoon excursion to the Khan el-Khalili, Egypt’s most famous bazaar, before saying good-bye to your traveling companions and catching your flight home.
—WorldPal pamphlet
Chapter 15
RESOLUTIONS AND REUNIONS
We flew to Cairo on the earliest flight the next morning. Our little group seemed curiously diminished. Not that I missed Mohammad or the ditz duo, murderous old bats, but I hadn’t realized how often I’d searched the group for a sight of Alan. His absence removed a lot of the luster from the day. Then, too, my throat hurt, and I felt sore and achy all over. I guess getting thrown to the ground isn’t as easy as it looks in the movies.
In the airport waiting lounge, Yvonne drew me aside.
“Well?” she asked, her faded eyes bright with interest.
“We were right about Mohammad at least,” I said, and then gave her a brief account of last night’s events.
She gave a little whistle. “Fiona and Flora? Really? They had their act down, that’s for sure. I never thought twice about them,” she added with chagrin.
“Me either. But apparently they weren’t good enough to fool Anni. She actually had asked Mohammad to keep his eye on them. Which suited him wonderfully, since that’s why he showed up in the first place.”
I glanced past her to the rest of the group, so familiar by now. DJ and Nimmi were together at a little shop, haggling again for something.
“What in the world is he going to do with all that stuff?” I asked rhetorically.
“Oh, I finally just asked him that. He works in a children’s hospital, and he likes handing out little toys to the kids. He thinks this stuff will be great for the older ones. And plus, he just likes haggling. He says it’s more fun than gambling. And cheaper.”
I laughed.
She nodded to where Ben, Lydia, and Jane were sitting. Jane was wearing a hat and dark glasses again. “I wish I knew their story. But the sooner they get on a plane to Australia, the better. That girl is going to have a nervous breakdown.”
I agreed, and apparently they thought the same thing because they left us at the Cairo airport. Their connecting flight through Vienna was leaving almost immediately, and they were going to skip the afternoon activities scheduled for the rest of us. With a feeling of frustration, I watched them wave good-bye and head to the next terminal. I wished them well, but like Yvonne, I wanted to know what was going on with them.
Kyla and I had to leave for the airport at three in the morning, so we said good-bye to Anni that night. I handed her an envelope containing the suggested tip amount, my twenty-five-dollar bet, plus every Egyptian pound I had left. It wasn’t as much as she deserved, although I was pretty sure that Kyla’s envelope contained the bonus I couldn’t afford. I also handed her a sheet of paper torn from my purse notepad.
“This is my e-mail and other information. Would you let me know how Alan is doing?”
“Of course,” she said, her dark luminous eyes full of understanding.
Cairo to Frankfurt, Frankfurt to Chicago, Chicago to Austin. Almost twenty-four hours later, I was back in Texas and due back in the classroom in less than twelve hours. Exhausted and let down, I crawled into bed and prepared to resume my normal life.
* * *
As she promised, Anni e-mailed me two days later to let me know that Alan had been released from the hospital. Her note was friendly, but brief. I’m not sure what I expected. “He has a fever and is calling for you,” would have been nice. I doubted I would ever see him again. I had no way to contact him and wasn’t sure what I’d say anyway. Sorry for hitting you with a rock just seemed so inadequate.
Life quickly returned to the old routine. A couple of weeks later, Kyla and I went to Eeyore’s Birthday Party, an annual festival that draws all the magnificent weirdness for which Austin is famous. You just never know what you’re going to see there—new age hippies smoking half-concealed joints, a transvestite in neon blue hot pants sporting a mountain-man beard, a couple of anorexic-looking women in fairy costumes.
We also ran into my ex, Mike, and his fiancée. I looked at the two of them, taking in the pressed clothes, the flash of diamonds at the wrist and neck, the manicured nails. And that was just him.
I grinned and said hello, then moved on, already looking forward to the catty things I would be able to say to Kyla as soon as they were out of earshot. I had taken ten paces and was already starting in on the fake tans, when I suddenly realized that the sting was gone. I might be vindictive and bitter, but I no longer grieved for what I’d lost. It felt really good. I saw the look of approval in Kyla’s eyes, as she came back strong with an observation about the fake boobs. All four of them.
* * *
One Saturday afternoon at the beginning of May, I was sitting on my back porch grading papers and drinking iced tea when the phone rang. I picked it up abs
ently, still concentrating on the pathetic spelling and poor grammar on the page in front of me. My red pen was poised and quivering.
“Jocelyn? Alan Stratton here.”
I absolutely froze. My mouth was open, but no sound was coming out.
“Alan Stratton?” he repeated, sounding uncertain. “From the Egypt tour?”
“Alan,” I managed, voice a little croaky. “Of course I know who you are. I’m just surprised.” I swallowed hard and sat up, scattering papers everywhere. “How are you? I mean, how are you feeling?”
“All recovered,” he said, a little more confident. “I’m back in the United States.”
“That’s great. No side effects? No headaches?” I asked the last a little gingerly. As far as I knew, no one knew I’d been the cause of his head injury.
“Nope, completely back to normal. And I hear I have you to thank for it.”
“Oh, I … oh, no. I didn’t do anything,” I said weakly.
“Not how I heard it.” He paused, then cleared his throat. “Anyway, I was wondering if I could come by sometime to thank you? Maybe we could even, I don’t know, go to dinner?”
“I’d love that,” I said. Was he actually going to come to Austin? Just to see me? I was suddenly very excited.
“How about tonight?”
“Tonight?”
“If you’ve already got plans, I completely understand,” he said hastily.
“You’re not in town, are you?”
“Actually, yes. In fact, I was going to just drop by your house, but then I decided that was just a little too much like a stalker.”
I was now pacing back and forth, unable to sit. I briefly wondered how he’d found my address, but it didn’t matter. He was here. In town. And he wanted to see me. I felt like one of my students, and not the brightest one at that.
“Jocelyn?”
“One hour.” I squeaked and hung up on him.
I was halfway to the shower before I realized how idiotic I must have sounded, but it was too late. I started the water, then raced to the phone and punched in Kyla’s number.
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